Benefit Concert

An evening of music featuring: David Pucik (guitar and vocals), Ken and Igor (instrumental guitar duo) and the Randy Lucas Trio (Randy Lucas on Banjo, Dave Holder on stand up bass, Jim Graddick on strings). No tickets! Instead, donations will be received towards our Summer Mission Trip to the Dominican Republic.

Ken Baldwin and Igor Agafonov, An unusual match

Igor the engineer and Ken a visual artist are neighbors, but both are also guitarists and composers. Baldwin, a finger-stylist, is more grounded in an Americana acoustic guitar whereas Russian-born Agafonov has the gift of instrumental improvisation with a style that’s steeped in jazz and fusion music. It is a blend of roots from two different parts of the world, collaborating and creating an individual sound that has been described as “transparent and seamless.”

The Randy Lucas Trio

Comprised of 3 multi-instrumentalists with vastly different backgrounds, creating a fun fusion of every song.

Although Randy Lucas, who holds a National Banjo Championship title, was born into a family steeped in traditional bluegrass, he blends it with a variety of musical influences. As he says, “….I heard all the rock n’ roll, Beatles, television shows, movies, augmented chords, diminished chords—all that really plays into my music. I sometimes feel like I’m a rock n’ roll player playing banjo.”

The group’s fiddler is Jim Graddick, a graduate of the USC Music Department with a degree in music education. He became interested in bluegrass and old-time fiddling styles at a young age and has been playing these styles along with the classical style for years. Jim knows how to add that special “edge” to the group’s overall sound.

The bassist for the group is Dave Holder of Columbia, SC. Dave started playing folk music in 1964 and has continued playing acoustic music of some sort throughout his life. He says that when he became involved in bluegrass he realized his guitar skills weren’t quite adequate enough, so he returned to the double bass after laying it down in 1968. He has continued his pursuit of music through studying classical music at the USC String Project, and you can sometimes find him, listening intently, in the local Jazz haunts.